4.2 million Afghan children under age of five expected to be vaccinated next week

An organization known as “Polio-Free Afghanistan” has recently announced that a new polio vaccination campaign will begin next week in various parts of the country.

Today, Thursday, August 8, thث organization posted on social media that the campaign is scheduled to start on Saturday of the coming week in several regions of Afghanistan.

Abdul Quddus Baryalai, the head of the Polio Eradication Operational Center at the Ministry of Public Health, told the media that the campaign will last for four days in Herat, Uruzgan, Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, and Nimroz.

According to officials at the Ministry of Public Health, during the campaign, 4.2 million children under the age of five are expected to be vaccinated.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries that have yet to eradicate polio.

This comes after Pakistani local media reported on Thursday that, a fifth case of polio has been reported from a district near the Afghan border, taking the number of polio victims detected in Balochistan to 10, out of a total of 13 reported from across Pakistan this year.

The latest victim is an 11-month-old infant from Qila Abdullah who has been paralysed by the wild poliovirus. The case highlights the persistent threat of polio and the urgency for communities to ensure polio vaccination of all under-five children living among them.

In addition to the five cases reported from Qila Abdullah district, the other five cases of Balochistan have been found in Chaman, Quetta, Zhob, Dera Bugti and Jhal Magsi, whereas three cases — two from Sindh and one from Punjab — have been confirmed from the rest of the country.